My Journey Becoming a Vegetarian

Tag Archives: mushrooms

“Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal.” -Ingrid Newkirk

Ingredients

2-3 eggs

2 minced garlic cloves

3 baby portobello mushrooms

handful of spinach

1 tablespoon diced onions

coconut oil

1/4 cup feta cheese

optional: hot sauce

First, sauté the spinach, onions, garlic, and mushrooms in coconut oil until the spinach is wilted. Put the cooked veggies on the plates for serving. Then, fry the eggs to your preference. Serve the eggs on top of the vegetables, sprinkle some feta cheese, and I top it all off with hot sauce because I cannot eat eggs without some hot sauce!

Deep inside, everyone’s a vegetarian. I just eat a few less animals than most. Once you come to terms why you don’t eat dogs, cats, monkeys, and dolphins, you’ll begin to understand why I don’t eat cows, pigs, chickens, and lambs.” -Edward Sanchez

I’ve found making pizzas as a quick meal that also includes some leftovers. The toppings are limitless and I usually just choose random vegetables I have purchased for other meals. Before becoming a vegetarian meat was my go-to topping on pizzas. I’ve found with trying different vegetables on my pizzas they are full of flavor and more satisfying than my former “meat lover” preferences.

For pizza crusts I advise AGAINST Kroger brand, it tasted like cardboard. Mama Mary’s brand (I’ve bought at Walmart) is made with whole wheat and is a thin and crispy style crust. I spread olive oil on the bottom of the crust to make it crispy. Before I spread the pizza sauce I like to spread minced garlic and pesto on the crust to add flavor. For pizza sauces I tend to prefer a white sauce such as alfredo or ranch dressing. Sometimes I mix half white sauce and half spaghetti sauce. For cheese I usually buy some pre-mixed mozzarella, Asiago, provolone, and romano cheeses. I also like to sprinkle feta after I have put the other toppings on the pizza. If you broil the oven it browns the cheese on top too.

In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people. –Ruth Harrison

As my final semester of college (or at least as an undergraduate) comes near an end I have been really busy lately. On top of final exams, assignments, and presentations I am preparing to move several states away. So I am trying to squeeze in posts when I can!

As I have said before, I love making soups because they provide multiple meals. Soups are usually better the next day anyway! So I decided to make this soup on the first 80 degree day of the year, which was probably not good planning.

As a note, the color of my soup is a little different than when you order it at a Chinese restaurant because I added the egg too early because I didn’t follow the recipe (oops!). So make sure to add the egg once the soup is nice and hot. I also kept adding more chili sauce because I like it spicy! Plus, I used “hot n spicy” pre-seasoned tofu, and restaurants usually use plain tofu. So the orange seasonings dissolved in the soup.

Ingredients

dried mushrooms –any combination of padi straw, shitake, cloud ears, lily buds (I did 1/2 oz dried padi and 1 oz dried shitake based on what I could find in my small town)

32 oz vegetable broth

1 T sesame oil

2-3 T chili sauce (I did about 5 in mine)

1 T rice vinegar

1 T soy sauce

6 oz hot ‘n spicy smoked tofu cut into tiny squares

1 beaten egg (vegan without!)

8 oz sliced bamboo shoots

3 oz sliced water chestnuts

2 green onions, chopped

2 ladles of residual water after soaking the mushrooms

salt and pepper

Soak the mushrooms in water for about 30 minutes.

While the mushrooms are soaking, make the broth. Mix the vegetable broth, sesame oil, chili sauce, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Salt and pepper to taste, and modify broth to taste. Heat the broth.

Add bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and mushrooms. Add 2 ladles of water from the soaked mushrooms for additional flavor.